Industry News
Swiss alpine race skier Beat Feuz announced his planned retirement from ski racing on social media this week. The 2017 World champion and 2022 Olympic champion in Downhill posted on Instagram in a joint post with the Swiss Ski Team his intention to retire on January 21, 2023, after competing in a final race at the famous Hahnenkamm race in Kitzbühel. Feuz won both 2021 Downhill events at the Hahnenkamm race in 2021.
“Pushing the limits and taking risks have been my year-long passion in skiing. My feelings were often the key to my success. Now my feelings tell me: you have reached your physical limit.
I look forward to spending more time with my family and am excited to see which new challenges life will have in store for me.
At the same time, I am incredibly grateful that I was able to live out my passion for such a long time and could experience so many emotional moments.
After 16 years on the World Cup circuit, I will end my active racing career on January 21, 2023. I look forward to my enjoying my favorite races at Wengen and Kitzbühel one last time.”
Beat Feuz can look back on a fantastic race career, having competed in his first FIS races at only 15 years of age. After several European Cups, Feuz qualified for the 2005 Junior World Championships and won Bronze in the Slalom event at the Bardonecchia, Italy, World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships. He won three Gold medals and a bronze at the 2007 Junior World Championships in Austria two years later and, due to his successful Junior Championships, was moved to the FIS Alpine World Cup that year. He gained his first FIS points in the Lenzerheide World Cup at only 20 but tore ligaments in his left knee in training later that year and had to miss the 2008 and 2009 World Cup seasons entirely.
He returned from injury for the 2009/10 season and won his first FIS Alpine World Cup in Kvitjfell, Norway, in the Downhill event in March 2011. Beat went strong into the 2011/12 season, landing on the podium 13 times and ending the season in 2nd place behind arch-rival Marcel Hirscher of Austria. The following seasons were plagued by injury, and doctors advised him to call it quits. The Swiss struggled but came back guns blazing at the end of the 2015/16 season when he podiumed five times, including winning the St. Moritz Downhill and Super-G at the end of the season. It was his first World Cup victory in four years.
From here on, Feuz moved from strength to strength, dominating the Men’s speed events and winning the FIS Downhill crystal globe in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In total, Beat has won 16 World Cups and podiumed 58 times, 46 of those in Downhill. His crowning moment was probably winning Olympic Gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. He had competed previously at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi but failed to podium and had collected Silver and Bronze at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Beat Feuz has two daughters, Luisa and Clea, with his long-term partner Katrin Triendl, a fellow ski racer from Austria. Triendl retired from ski racing in 2010 after a torn ACL.
There will be a press conference in Bormio, Italy, on December 26, 2022, where he will discuss his decision in greater detail.
We wish him good luck for the last few races of the season and all the best for his retirement.
